PORTLAND, Ore. — Multnomah County notably lost population last year, but on the north side of the Columbia River, Vancouver is still experiencing rapid growth — and it's prompting local leaders to think big when planning for the future.
Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle was a guest on this week's episode of Straight Talk to discuss how the city plans to maintain its momentum and tackle the challenges that come with rapid growth.
Vancouver's current population is about 200,000 people, she said, but county estimates show that the city will need to be prepared to house 450,000 people — more than double the current population — 20 years from now.
"It could very well be that very soon — because of a number of different annexation opportunities and such — we could be the second-largest city in the state of Washington," she said. "We have room to grow — growing a little bit into our urban growth area, and definitely growing up."
The interview comes just a few days after the mayor delivered her annual State of the City address, doing so in person for the first time in four years. She said she and other city leaders opted for a shorter speech this year in order to allow for a longer community forum afterwards, giving the public more of a chance to lay out their vision for the future of the city.
It's no surprise that the city's growth is now outpacing the rest of the Portland metro area, she said.
"We've known for a long time that a number of people are coming to Vancouver," she said. "We've been growing at between four and five thousand a year for a long time."
Driver license data shows the newcomers aren't all Multnomah County transplants, she added, Plenty of them are also coming from Washington County, Clackamas County or California.
Many of the people moving in are looking for water and greenery, she said, and an escape from the dry and in some places drought-plagued conditions along the west coast to the south of Portland. The lack of an income tax in Washington helps them decide to land north of the river.
The big development at the Vancouver waterfront tends to be the first thing people talk about in terms of the city's growth, she said, but there are also big redevelopment projects underway in the city's Heights district and, further to the east, decommissioned mining quarries that are being filled in.
Replacing the aging Interstate 5 bridge will also be key to Vancouver's future growth, McEnerny-Ogle said, and she reiterated calls for the new bridge to include light rail as a way to improve Vancouver's transit connections to Portland.
The U.S. Coast Guard recently asked the bridge project team to study a drawbridge option due to concerns about clearance for river traffic, but when asked, McEnerny-Ogle expressed strong support for a fixed-span replacement bridge. Upriver companies don't use the existing drawbridge's maximum clearance often enough to make it worth preserving, she said.
"Once in ten years? That isn't justification to have the entire world of Vancouver stop (for bridge lifts) ... and the cost would be incredible," she said. "We're trying to keep it down, as much as possible, and even below that $6 billion. We can do it, we'll figure it out."